Surviving Capitalism (Not) : Enbridge to Nowhere

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Friday, November 10, 2017

Enbridge to Nowhere

Click here to access report from the Public Accountability Initiative. (Note: the post provides an index of sub-topics (on the right-hand side) in this rather lengthy report to help you access the different parts.)

Protesters march against Enbridge's Line 3 pipeline proposal
(Photo: Ellen Schmidt--Minnesota Public Radio)

This report is about how Enbridge corporation is cleverly attempting to deceive and, overcome the resistance of, the people of Minnesota into approving a largest pipeline ever, a pipeline that, if approved, will pass through Minnesota and pump millions of barrels of tar sands oil into the US from Canada.

A recent study released by the University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD) on the economic benefits of Enbridge’s controversial Line 3 replacement pipeline is deeply compromised by major conflicts of interest, many of which are undisclosed, as well as serious methodological problems. The Duluth News Tribune, the Duluth area’s leading newspaper, also has major undisclosed conflicts surrounding its coverage of the UMD study.

The UMD study is a prime example of a wider tactic used by the fossil fuel industry, which we’ve reported on before, whereby the industry and industry-backed groups fund studies that bear a legitimizing university imprimatur but are in fact deeply influenced and/or supported by the very oil and gas companies that have a vested interest in the results of the studies. The findings of these industry-financed studies are then spread by backers as fact in op-eds, editorials, letters to editors, public hearings, and other mediums, all while being referred to as a given university’s study — with the authority and trust that confers — rather than an industry study.

This is another dramatic illustration among a vast number that shows how nearly everything in a capitalist society is fake in order to promote profits for a relatively tiny group of investors while destroying the ecosystem upon which we all depend.